This is an introduction to the JAIS special issue on social networks and information systems. It briefly acknowledges the increase in social network research and network analysis in IS field and accounts for some of its reasons. The authors state that studies on social networks are not 'new' per se, but new IT capabilities are changing both the networks existance (creation, maintenance, visibility) and the analysis (tracing, visualization, simulation, etc). Furthermore, it categorizes the research stream in three divisions including